It took us quite a bit of effort to overcome the gravitational pull of Lisbon. After our epic of finding a hotel on Thursday the 6th, we were determined to get back on the Camino, hike some distance, and stay in a real albergue on Friday the 7th.
Without going into a lot of detail, we had breakfast in the hotel then took the Metro to the Moscavida station. From there we walked to the last point where we were on the Camino on the 6th and rejoined the route at 9:11am.
The weather is warm and muggy. We walked about 12km to the Al Priate Albergue and arrived around noon. I had learned over the phone the evening before that there were only ten beds at this albergue and that albergues do not accept reservations. First come, first served. I also learned that there have been many pilgrims hiking The Way recently. The albergue opend its door at 2pm, so we wanted to be there ahead of time.
We saw the first two pilgrims other than ourselves ahead of us on The Way as we hiked to Al Priate. When we arrived at the albergue, several pilgrims passed by as we waited at the door. Some went on further down The Way, others to a cafe around the corner to wait until the albergue opened at 2pm.
An older couple from Sweden and a young couple from Israel stopped and waited with us. At 2pm the door was opened and the swedish couple did their best to elbow their way past Jerry and Dave as they went into the albergue even though we had been there for over an hour before they showed-up. Dave did not let that happen.
The host at the albergue was very directive. He reminded me of the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld, or the Waffle Wrangler that Jerry and I met on our Trans-America bike tour. "Packs against that wall!," "Passports and Pilgrim Credential must be properly filled-out and complete!..." He went on with other directive instructions as he checked us in. The cost of the albergue was 10.50e for the night. Unfortunately, the Israeli couple did not have a Pilgrim Credential and were turned away. We felt lucky to have scored a bed as they filled up immediately and other pilgrims were turned away in the coming hours.
We showered and did laundry in a tub that was outside in a small courtyard. We carried the contents of our packs in a small tub that was provided up a narrow staircase to a bunkroom upstairs. This albergue was co-ed and there was not much way to have privacy. Not a big deal in Europe. Kind of a big deal in America.
After arranging our things we wrote in our journals and researched the coming day's hike. While doing this, we got better aquainted with our roomates. A German from Saxony (Erhardt), and a woman from Korea (Sang Hee Choi), rather took to us.
We ate at Cafe Grillus around the corner and I had a coupe glasses of wine for a total of 9.50e. I got to practice my German a lot beacuse Erhardt speaks only a few words of English. I found it particularly difficult to understand his Saxon dialect, but we are able to communicate. It was not long until the topic of politics and the "T" word came up. It is embarrasing to acknowledge that the current American president was elected. I tried to explain that not all Americans are as stupid as this election result would seem to indicate. * Sigh...
On Saturday the 8th, we were up at 7am, a little later than the other pilgrims. Our plan was to walk to Vila Franca about 20km up The Way and stay at one of two albergues there. Ehrhardt ended-up hiking with us during the day and stayed with us that night.
Both the guidebook and my on-line GPS route and waypoints were incorrect when it came to the name and placement of the albergues in Vila Franca. Even the Camino route was off on my on-line version! We ended up walking around town A LOT trying to find a place to stay after abandoning the information we had.
We finally found one of the hostels, but they did not have enough room for us. They did, however, call another hostel and find us a pair of rooms for the 4 of us. We walked to the train station where the hostel was supposed to be and found nothing. I spoke with some locals on two occasions and we were sent to two incorrect locations as a result. Finally I called the hostel and the woman running it met me at the train station to walk us to the location. It was hidden away and we would have never found it. The hostel (Vilas Tajo) is located next to the rail tracks and the trains blow their horns as they pass though every 15 minutes or so. * Yikes!
Off to dinner soon. Wish us luck getting some rest! Hitting the sack by 9:30pm!
The corner where we rejoined the Camino (Note the yellow Camino shell emblem)
Hiking The Way
An old abandoned house. I liked the red of the building and flowers.
Al Priate Albergue
Dinner at the Cafe Grillus
A hillside with a town on top and horses on the slopes. We walked in a valley of sorts for a long while on the 7th.
Hiking The Way on the 8th. We saw a lot of bamboo.
Sometimes we even walked through it...
We also have our fair share of walking through the edges of large towns. We had breakfast in this town on the 8th after walking an hour or so. Breakfast was a flat ham and cheese sandwich-like thing and espresso.
Our hostel (Vilas Tajo) in Vilas Franca (Note the wooden 'Running Of The Bulls' barriers at the edges of the street - not all are in place at this time)
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